Crews recover bodies in Texas blast

14 dead; 60 remain unaccounted for

April 20, 2013 12:00 AM

By Darrell Preston and Joe Carroll Bloomberg News

DALLAS -- Search crews have recovered the bodies of 14 people killed in a Texas fertilizer-plant explosion that injured 200 and devastated the small town of West in the worst U.S. industrial disaster in at least three years.

The dead include five volunteer firemen and four emergency medical personnel, West Mayor Tommy Muska said Friday in a media briefing. Sixty people remain unaccounted for, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said at a separate briefing.

Only one house near the site of the blast Wednesday at Adair Grain Inc.'s warehouse was yet to be searched as of this evening, officials said at a news conference. The identities of the deceased weren't released.

The Adair facility had a stockpile of ammonium nitrate, a nitrogen fertilizer so volatile that it has been used by terrorists to build truck bombs. Mr. Cornyn said he was "confident" that the blast will lead to a review of the government's chemical plant safety rules.

"We have to start all over; I don't know what we're going to do," said Joann Williams, 70, who was evacuated from her house.

The explosion, which rocked the town of 2,800 residents with the force of a small earthquake, destroyed about 50 homes, three of the town's fire trucks and an emergency medical services vehicle, said Sgt. Jason Reyes, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Authorities didn't say where they had found the bodies.

Adair Grain owner Donald Adair, a West resident, said one of his employees, a volunteer firefighter, perished. The company is working with investigators, he said in an emailed statement. "We pledge to do everything we can to understand what happened, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again in any community," he said.

The death toll is the highest for a U.S. industrial catastrophe since April 2010, when 29 coal miners perished in Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

Firefighters in West were already battling a blaze at the plant, and had begun evacuating nearby residents, when it exploded about 7:53 p.m. local time. A nursing home, hospital and two schools are situated within a mile of the facility, which sits outside the northeast edge of town.

Ammonium nitrate was responsible for some of the deadliest industrial accidents in the last century, including a 1947 explosion in Texas City, Texas, that killed more than 570, said chemistry professor John Verkade at Iowa State University in Ames.

There were no indications that the fire or explosion was triggered intentionally, police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton said Thursday. Teams of urban search-and-rescue experts, known as Texas Task Forces 1 and 2, arrived on the scene Thursday. A contingent of forensic chemists and explosive specialists from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also was deployed. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which looks into industrial chemical accidents, said on its website that a "large investigation team" had been sent to West.

A 2011 inspection of the plant by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration revealed violations of material-handling rules, according to an agency document. The inspector said the company planned to ship anhydrous ammonia in unauthorized cargo tanks, and had failed to develop a security plan for the transportation.

The agency initially proposed a fine of $10,100. It was reduced to $5,250 last year, which the company paid. The agency said in its final order in the matter that the company had addressed the violations, and "no further corrective actions are required."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inspected the West plant's risk management plan in March 2006 and found deficiencies. The EPA fined the facility $2,300 in August of that year and directed Adair Grain to correct the shortcomings, agency spokeswoman Alisha Johnson said by email.